Coroners and Justice Bill

My main concern throughout this long-running debate, going right back to the counter-terrorism legislation, has been whether we will have an article 2-compliant process. I am still not entirely convinced—even with the Lords amendment and, indeed, amendment (a) from the Opposition Front-Bench team—that we will end up with an article 2-compliant process. However, I shall not go into that in more detail, because we have debated it at great length. My first point, which I put to the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) in my intervention, is about the lack of a trigger mechanism. It would be very helpful if my right hon. Friend the Justice Secretary said that the only circumstance in which he can envisage the power being used is if an intercept question has to be resolved. That would go a long way to providing satisfaction. The real issue is about the lack of safeguards, and, if I compare the original proposals for civil inquests with today's proposals on judicial oversight, I am not sure that we have moved a great deal further on. My right hon. Friend says that the decision to request that a coroner suspend an inquest would be subject to judicial review, but that is a narrow test—certainly narrower than the Opposition's proposal for, effectively, the suspension's approval by the Lord Chief Justice. I follow my right hon. Friend's argument about whether proposed new paragraph 1(1)(c) of schedule 1 cross-refers with the original process, but my main concern is that we could end up in limbo: on the one hand, the Lord Chancellor would say, "We want a secret inquest"; and on the other, the Lord Chief Justice would say, "You can't have a judge for it". We would be left in limbo, because there would be no way of resolving that issue. The beauty of the proposal from the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield, however, is that it would resolve the issue, by stating that the inquest could not be suspended unless the Lord Chief Justice had approved the decision. That would represent a much broader test than the judicial review test, because the Lord Chief Justice would be able to look at all the evidence—including the secret evidence that might not be admissible in a judicial review application.